To celebrate the release of The Malgrave Incident, the latest game in the Mystery Case Files series, three producers from Nintendo and Big Fish Games fielded questions from GeekMom on what goes into developing a video game.
Nintendo’s Azusa Tajima and Masa Miyazaki, along with Big Fish producer Shawn Seavers, told us how they keep the world’s leading hidden-object series interesting, what to look for in the latest game, and what might be ahead for the series.
GM: What are the challenges specific to developing an E-rated game?
Big Fish Games: Our biggest challenge in making an E-rated game is creating a compelling story that is not too complicated. The goal is to have a plot that is easily understood but one that also has enough layers to keep players interested over the course of the game. In addition to the story, we also have to be careful when hiding objects. There are objects that could change the rating so we need to make sure that we keep those out of the scenes.
Nintendo: In general, it takes a big team effort to develop an E-rated game. We need to fulfill a lot of criteria set by the ESRB. For this particular game, there are so many hidden objects in the game that it was a significant challenge for us to eradicate objects that could affect the rating.
[Read the rest of Alisson Clark’s interview with the developers of The Malgrave Incident on GeekMom!]
